


Us Against the World

by karrenia_rune



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Stargate Atlantis Big Bang Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-02
Updated: 2014-08-02
Packaged: 2018-02-10 13:07:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2026251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karrenia_rune/pseuds/karrenia_rune
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An AR version of Elizabeth Weir is found when the Atlantis team tracks a mysterious message to its source.  Her Atlantis is gone, but they hadn't gone down without a fight, and this Elizabeth is a little more military, and even though she may been the last survivor from an alternate reality she is going to make damn sure that the fate that befell her own will not happen to this one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Us Against the World

Notes: The title was inspired by the Cold Play song by the same name. The lines that Elizabeth quotes are from the classic Dylan Thomas poem “Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night.” Fanmix by me: 10 tracks  
Disclaimer: Stargate Atlantis and the characters belong to their respective producers and creators. They are not mine, and are only 'borrowed' for the purposes of the story. Written for the 2014 THE SGA BIg Bang.

On Spotify here's the mix I created when writing the story:   
  
  


9\. Can't Take Me-Bryan Adams  
http://open.spotify.com/track/30uLviIQ59DMggZOC2VNpo

“Us against the World” by Karrenia

The bunkers came into a view from their vantage point at the top of a ridge and appeared to have been abandoned some time ago, but Colonel John Sheppard did not care to take any unnecessary chances if he could help it. 

With a series of pre-arranged hand signal and significant nods Sheppard and his team descended down from the ridge to the flatlands below crossing the rising and dipping fold of the land in long strides that quickly ate up the ground. 

Ronon Dex and Teyla flanked each other and Rodney McKay carried the device he and Radek Zelenka had cobbled together at the base camp. It was designed to provide a portable means of tracking and pinpointing the series of anomalous energy readings. 

Rodney cupped in one hand and walked with his head bent to monitor the readings giving his posture and gait an odd hunched look. The device was a matte black box like the kind that John Sheppard had been familiar with similar devices serving in his former stint as an Air Force pilot before joining up for the missing to explore the Pegasus Galaxy. 

John Sheppard had come to think of the device as the Black Box and when they had discussed the matter earlier on they had both agreed it was as good a name as any.  
Once they were within ten feet of the bunkers the Black Box began to screech in electronic sputtering that sounded as loud as a thunder clap in the still crisp autumn air. “Can’t you make that thing alert us any quieter?” Ronon griped.

“I’m sorry if it inconveniences you, Mr. Dex. The next time I cobble together at a moment’s notice I’ll make certain to put in a screech -muffler in the specs,” Rodney McKay retorted half-heartedly his attention divided between being irritated and reading the results of the scan.

“Anything?” asked John Sheppard. 

“Near as I can tell, the energy readings match those taken by the Daedalus on their last survey of this region five weeks ago,” replied Rodney in response to Sheppard’s question, his earlier flare up of irritation at Ronon forgotten.

In some ways it had become almost an affectionate goading of each other, a friendly by-play, instead of a verbal prodding at the proverbial chinks in each other’s armor. And as much it was welcome from time to time, this was not one of those times. 

Rodney had been keyed up for weeks since reading the report by Daedalus commander, Cavanaugh had thought nothing much of it; as far as he had been concerned the unremarkable apparently long deserted planetoid had been nothing more than just another hunk of rock that he had come across during a routine survey, and nothing more.

But reading between the lines and Rodney along with the assistance of Radek Zelenka and the quirky but quite talented but still very young Doctor Jennifer Keller had studied the readouts of the energy particles that had been discovered in the vicinity and had discovered a pattern hidden beneath the white noise. Rodney firmly believed it was a message, and it had not been that much of a stretch to deduce that the message had been addressed to them. 

It had taken a good deal of convincing to convince Sheppard and Major Samantha Carter to get on board with their theory and even more convincing to let Sheppard led a team in search of the message’s origin; but here they were, about to find it out if their hypothesis had been the correct one.

The door was heavy and the metal hinges showed the effect that time, neglect and exposure to the elements had worked upon them, but by putting some effort into forcing the doors open they at last yielded.  
Sheppard did not make any comment on it, but Teyla took one glance at the angular runes etched into the matte black metal and gave an involuntary shiver.

Teyla did not have to be able to have had knowledge of any particular distaff branches of the long-vanished Ancients’ language to be able to understand what they meant. The warning for ‘stay out, this way lays danger’ could be pretty much understood in just about any language.

Inside it was cold, but given the fact that the exterior temperature had been cold to begin with and steadily dropping as it evening came on, that was hardly unexpected. The place was littered with debris, dust, grime, dead leaves blown in thrown cracks in the walls, and other sundry matter that had obviously not been there by the work of nature. 

A bank of computer monitors along with barrels and stacks of now empty weapons racks were bolted into one wall. On the floor were stacked empty brown gunny sacks that looked as if they might once have contained flour or wheat o perhaps ammo given the Spartan nature of the place.

The further they penetrated into the bunker’s interior the more of the same abandoned nature of the place became evident. While the abandoned feel of the place did not indicated that the departure of the base’s inhabitants was recent, it also seemed that they had chosen to leave rather than having been forced out. 

“There were no signs of violence or of hasty departure,” Sheppard said.

At one point: “Looks like whoever was here didn’t leave in a big hurry. Whoever was here pretty much stripped the place clean and left everything they couldn’t carry.”

“Looks that way, unless we’ve completely misread the message,” Ronon Dex observed and then asked, “How soon before our scheduled check-in with Major Carter?”

Sheppard glanced down at the digital read-out on his watch, and replied, “Another two hours.”

Doctor Keller asked, “Could the message possibly have been on an auto-loop, like a distress signal that keeps being sent out but there’s no one there?”

“If that’s the case, there must be a power source nearby, because the readings I’m getting are now stronger than ever. We’re close, I can feel it!” exclaimed Rodney breathlessly.

“Great, but I’d rather find out one way or the other, and not stand around speculating about it,” said Sheppard.

“The bunkers were all built low roofed and low to the ground, almost as if they didn’t want to been seen,” Ronon remarked.

“I agree, it’s as if they wanted to keep something hidden, or hide from something,” Keller added. “Which way, Rodney?” 

“The signal is strongest from the north east quadrant, I suggest we head that way,” Rodney replied to her question.

“I have a bad feeling about this,” murmured Teyla under her breath, in an aside to Colonel Sheppard, who normally would give her intuition due consideration, however if he heard her this time, he gave no sign of it.  
***

Elsewhere.

It was cold, so cold that it penetrated through the thick layer of insulation that she had been clad in. So cold d that she felt as if a fire were burning like a fire through her skin, her every nerve-ending, and burnt all the way down from her head to the soles of her feet. 

Despite the fact that she was so cold she pressed on, the soles of her heavy boots sinking ankle deep into the hard-packed ground. And in her wake the footprints left deep impressions in her wake, and the fast-falling snow-storm quickly filled the depressions as soon as she was past. 

There were slashes made by a knife that she could not remember as being her own and each time the shrouded winter sun made a pass from day into night she made a slash in the leather of satchel that she carried to mark the passage of time. If time still held any sway for her anymore.

Even the wind sang to her in short gasps, and sudden squalls, and it wind had a voice it carried a message on the air, Give up! Give in! Lie down where you stand and sleep, sleep forever, and forget all your cares.’

A part of her wanted to listen to those voices, however, a part of her nature that had served her so well before she had come to this cold and unforgiving place was screaming at her to keep going, to keep fighting.

She had almost forgotten how she came to be in this place, what lay ahead of her path, as she had forgotten so much else, but one thing surface to the surface of her consciousness, and one thing made it possible for her to push the voices in her head and their message of surrender away to a back corner of her mind.  
Instead, she clung to the one thing that she could recall, ‘What is my name? I knew it once.’ They have not yet taken that away from me. I am. I’m here. I will not give in. I will not go gently into that light. As if it came from a very distant place, a fragment of a poem came to here, a light in her otherwise dark existence, a line written by a man on the subject of death. She did not know exactly why it had meant so much to her before she had come to be in this place, but it did. And it was something reassuring to which to cling to. ‘How did it go?’ she wondered. 

 

“Do not go gentle into that good night, rage, rage against the dying of the light. Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright  
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,  
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.  
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,  
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,  
Do not go gentle into that good night.  
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight  
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,  
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

I am. I am…. I am Elizabeth Weir!” The fragment of the poem faded out of her memory like a wisp of smoke from a dying fire, but the feeling that at the heart of it remained within her, kindling an even greater fire. She knew without being aware of how she knew, that it was important than anything else at the moment to nurture that spark and keep it burning no matter what.

Her rambling monologue was abruptly interrupted by the resounding clang of the door to the chamber that she had woken up in being forcibly opened, and then the sound of booted footsteps entering the room.  
At first she imagined it was just her loneliness and faltering, sluggish consciousness playing tricks on her mind and she was about to dismiss it as such when the half familiar footsteps were accompanied by half familiar voices and blurry images; like heat shimmers across a dry and dusty land. 

Elizabeth Weir shook her head and reached up to clear away the gritty feeling from her eyes, but the blurry images and voices did not go away, instead they became clearer. “John,” she whispered, hoping that it was true.

John Sheppard had expected a great deal of things and had as many or more during his time and he had thought he nothing short of the planet-wide depredations of the Wraith could faze him. However, what met his eyes surprised his normally confident and nonchalant demeanor. Lined up against the wall was row upon row of six feet tall cylindrical tubes and inside the only functioning tube was someone he had never thought to ever see again. “Elizabeth,” he whispered.

The woman who resembled the Elizabeth Weir they had all known, served under, admired and loved was alive. Well, alive in the sense that she was encased in a two meter tall metal cylinder comprised of some unknown and perhaps alien polymer.

“Rodney,” Sheppard said in a hushed voice, “Can you confirm that’s really here?

“I can’t say for sure for sure. If it’s not, it’s a dead ringer for the genuine article. Just remember we’ve been fooled before by the Replicators,” warned McKay.

“I concur. We are dealing with an unknown here. I recommend caution,” added Ronon.

“I don’t know,” Rodney McKay replied. The energy signal matches that of the one that led us to this world.” Thinking even as he moved forward to place his free hand on the cold glass of the cylinder that if Albert Einstein had been correct when he once said that the universe played dice with mortal lives than it was an awfully big coincidence for them to be here and now. 

His common sense told him that this could not be happening, that Elizabeth Weir was dead, but in his heart, where reason gave way to emotions; he wanted it to be true. 

Jennifer Keller as the ranking medical officer approached and trying not to be too intrusive cleared her throat and said, “I think that there’s only one way to find out, and until we get her back to Atlantis, we will not find out any more by standing around here.”

“She’s right,” John Sheppard nodded.

Rodney McKay He studied the readouts on the panel embedded into the wall beside the cylinder and a moment or two began to punch in a sequence of iconographic symbols and the tube popped open so unexpectedly that he was forced to jump back a few steps. 

“What the hell?” he exclaimed.

John Sheppard and Jennifer Keller received Elizabeth in their arms. She was alive and her skin cold and clammy to the touch, but having been inside what they took to be some kind of cryogenic chamber that was to be expected.

Lifting her into his arms Sheppard turned around hitched her into a more comfortable carrying position, saying as he did so. “I guess that’s it then. Let’s go home.”

“You’ll get no argument from me,” McKay replied.

“I still think that this was a bit too easy,” griped Ronon.

“Oh, Ronon,” sighed Teyla, adding, “Could you be any gloomier if you tried?”

“Oh, My God!” John Sheppard exclaimed.

Ronon Dex not known for breaking his customary stoicism, even under the most trying or extraordinary of circumstances turned to Teyla and said: “You are teasing me, but I still maintain that every precaution should be taken upon our return. Do not mistake me, I wish this to be what it appears to be. I respected and admired the real Elizabeth Weir…”

“But,” Keller quietly prompted. “What is that Earth saying?”

Ronon nodded and replied, “It might be too good to be true.”

“That’s the one.” Elizabeth smiled. 

“How do we get her out of there?” Jennifer asked, voicing the question that had they had seemingly all been balancing on a knife’s edge, but no one had yet spoken aloud.

Colonel John Sheppard shrugged. “I guess we open the cylinder.”

“Somehow I don’t think it’s going to be that easy,” Keller remarked.

“Let me take a look,” replied Rodney evenly. He too was amazed to find her here, alive and well; under the circumstances, and while he had never before encountered cryogenic technology he had at least he had read up on the theory behind it and he was reasonably certain that he could figure it out. 

As Rodney approached the cylindrical tube he could feel the sheen of cold sweat underneath the layers of his uniform jacket and short-sleeved t-shirt, the sweat sticking to his back and stomach like a second skin, muttering, “I don’t believe it, and I certainly don’t want to mess this up!”

“It’s okay, Rodney,” replied Elizabeth, as if she had heard his unspoken hopes and doubts.

“Just hang on, and I’ll get you out of there and we can all go home,” Rodney said with all the confidence he could muster.

“We’ll do our best,” Sheppard added, not to be outdone by McKay.

“From what I recall, Colonel Sheppard, you’re best was usually pretty darn good,” quipped Elizabeth Weir.

“Let’s get out of here,” muttered Jennifer Keller

“Why?” asked Ronon.

“Mission accomplished an all that,” she replied. “And more importantly, this place is giving me the creeps.”

“Then let’s all go home,” quipped Sheppard.

 

*****************  
Once Sheppard’s field team had returned to base, the startling news of Elizabeth Weir’s miraculous ‘resurrection’ rapidly spread through the city, but it also seen that had to be addressed one way or another.

Major Samantha Carter, once informed of the startling revelations that Dr. Elizabeth Weir was alive, ordered that a full medical exam be conducted. Saying that it was just to be certain that it was as Sheppard had in his laconic fashion, ‘the Real McCoy’

Doctor Jennifer Keller had donned her medical scrubs and face mask and bent over the prone form of their long-lost friend and teammate studying the woman’s vital signs. 

Aside from the effects of a long stay in a cryogenic chamber everything lined up perfectly with the original article; and keeping in mind the legitimate concerns of her other teammates, one could almost say they lined up too perfectly. 

Colonel John Sheppard lounged on a nearby currently unused exam table, a study in casual nonchalance, but she had come to know him well enough that inside he was a churning mass of emotions; however none  
of that was apparent on either his face or his body language.

So far, and not for lack of being overly cautious, everything had checked out, heart rate pulse, skin tone, blood pressure, all vital signs were within the range of normal and she had compared them to the medical information that was readily on file and there were no aberrations. 

Keller supposed she should have been relieved on that score, but somehow Keller could not put aside a nagging suspicion that it was too good to be true.

Just then a tiny ‘ping’ sounded from a nearby console and with a wave of her hand she assigned on the medical techs who were standing by to assist here to continue monitoring her patient’s vital signs to go check it out. The parabola described on the screen was rotating at a 180 degree angle, and super-imposed beside was a real-time map of her patient’s brain. 

Leaning down with her elbows resting on the console Keller at first did not detect anything out of the ordinary, but when she looked closer she saw that it was if tiniest signal was competing for attention amongst all the hundreds of thousands of electric impulses, as if to say one of these things is not long the others, one of these things does not belong.

It was as damaging as the havoc caused by the Replicators on the original Elizabeth Weir, and which had ultimately led to her death. 

This one seemed to be nothing more than a much, much weaker version of the message that he led them to that abandoned base on that inhabited planet. Whatever the message was, it was indeed a message as she hypothesized, the only way they might be able to decipher is if they asked the only person who could give those answers to their questions.

 

Interlude

Major Evan Lorne sat hovering expectantly on the edge of the exam table as Dr. Keller, along with Rodney McKay hovering like a bumblebee darting from flower to flower, or in this case one screen of data to the next, reading the information that scrolled across their display screens. 

He hated waiting, knowing that whatever the result of their medical exams could very well determine whether or not Dr. Keller declared him fit for duty again. He had not been the only one injured in the fight against the dark matter aliens, but he had been the only one whose brain chemistry had been the most adversely affected by the creatures’ attempts to sneak a peek into the workings of his mind.

“Well,” he said at last.

Jennifer Keller turned around, a bit startled by the sudden intrusion of a voice among the whir of computers and lights. 

Doctor Jennifer Keller possessed a cheerful engaging nature, and while most of the time Evan Lorne found that was what he liked most about her. 

At the moment he did not know whether or not it meant that she was about to deliver bad news about his condition and wanted to put a cheerful spin on it, or she really did have good news to deliver.

“Well, Mr. Lorne, I think the worst is over,” said Keller walking over to pat him on the shoulder. 

“Does that mean that I can return to active duty?” Lorne asked expectantly.

“Yes,” replied Keller. “But don‘t overly exert yourself. The seizures that you experienced as a result of the dark matter creature’s attempt ‘ah, to get into your head, are not systemic. I doubt you will have any more repeated episodes.”

“Good to know,” he replied.

“I spoke with Doctor Heightmeyer; the resident psychiatric expert had recommended a series of drugs that you should only take one per day with food or water, if you feel any adverse effects.”

“Such as?” he asked.

Keller replied, “Like head-aches, blurry vision, muscle weakness, fatigue or tremors. I was speaking with her; she did have an excellent therapeutic suggestion.”

He leaned forward, wondering what it might be. Keller smiled a pixie grin to match her pixie-like features, and to Major Evan Lorne’s way of thinking such an expression would not be out of place on the proverbial cat that any the canary.

“Oh?” he asked.

“Painting,” she replied. “You could use the canvas as a kind of outlet to help you sort out of the sensory and emotional trauma.”

“I, I don’t know,” he hesitated. He knew that the almost all of the crew was aware that even tough, no-nonuse military sergeants had a personal, emotional side that he rarely showed or shared with just anyone, even his closest friends, but that had never bothered him. 

Nor did Evan Lorne spend much time analyzing why or how the images and emotional impact that he imparted to his work had a link to what he had been feeling or experiencing at the time he created the for they just flowed out of him. 

“I don’t want to force, and God knows neither I nor Kate, or Colonel Sheppard will make it an order if you don’t want to give it a try,” continued Keller.

He got up off of them exam table and took her hands in his, lifting her face so she was looking into her eyes. “I will give it a try.” He let go of her and shrugged. “I wouldn’t hurt to try, and besides I think it might even work. 

“I guess there’s only one way to find out, right?” Keller remarked with a tremulous smile.

“I hope it will help, I don’t like to see any of patients in pain, or my friends,” she added with a kind laugh.

“I know,” replied Lorne as he offered her a reassuring smile.

“You’d better, Mr. Lorne,” stated Jennifer Keller sternly, adding with a small half-smile and a pixie-grin, “or else I’ll turn it into doctor’s orders,”

“Terrifying, just terrifying,” replied Lorne attempting to manfully avoid laughing outright, and ending up giving himself a coughing fit, which Jennifer came around where he was sitting and helpfully thumped on his broad shoulders. “Oh, you are incorrigible, simply incorrigible. Have I mentioned that lately?”

“No, No,” Lorne replied, much calmer and steadier this time. “Not lately.”

 

***  
Three days later

“I don’t mean to sound harsh, but what can you tell us about what happened to you?” said Major Samantha Carter, perhaps more abrasively than she intended. I t was not likely she harbored any resentment to the sudden reappearance of her predecessor, far from that. It was just that she was as wary as the next person about the sheer coincidence of the fact that woman was alive after all this time.

“At first I did not recall anything up until my, ah, shall we say ‘reawakening in that complex where Colonel Sheppard and his team found me,” Elizabeth replied confidently. 

“I realize that isn’t very helpful, but I stand by that statement. And perhaps it was a blessing in disguise, not to have to remember anything. It was a long sleep, like the Greeks philosophers what is sleep but a little death? But, I digress. You see, in the time I was aware of my surroundings, it finally came back to me, and I do realize how this is going to sound…” she trailed off.

“What do you mean?” Colonel Sheppard prompted.

“I mean, John, let me tell you that I am I am not the Elizabeth Weir that you remember.”

“I don’t understand,” said Teyla. “How can that be?”

“You see, I am from an alternate timeline, one in which my Atlantis fell to overwhelming odds.” She replied in a sober undertone, raising one hand to cover her eyes, as if to protect herself from a blow or in remembered sorrow.

“Normally I’d be the first to scoff at the sheer absurdity of the existence of alternate timelines, “ Rodney began, “but we’ve all been around the block long enough to know that its’ possible. What I don’t understand is how you got ah, here, to our own.”

“I’m still working on that part. Near as I can tell I must have fallen through a crack in the space-time continuum. Of course, I wouldn’t have been placed inside a cryogenic chamber if that were the case, would I?” Elizabeth replied.

“No, that doesn’t seem very likely,” Carter replied.

“I think that at the end there, my team came through either using a technology we’d only just developed or reverse engineered from one of the Ancients, and sent me through. Once we got there, they set up that base where you found me in the hope that some of us would survive.

“Where are the others, then?” asked Teyla.

Elizabeth heaved a sigh before replying: “They either didn’t make it, or went back to the seal the dimensional breach behind, to make certain that nothing could follow them through.”

“What kinds of things?” asked Ronon

“Ronon, can’t you see that she’s suffering from some kind of post-traumatic stress, maybe it would best to leave it alone for a while at least,” remarked Teyla.

“I appreciate your concern, Mr. Dex,” chimed in Major Samantha Carter, adding, “But it might be important, what else can you tell us what drove your team to leave their Atlantis?”

Weir shook her head and heaved a sigh reaching up to rub the backs of her hands through her short shoulder-length auburn hair, realizing that everyone gathered around the conference table was waiting on her answer, and she not really understanding how or why, or what to say. 

What she had left behind was as much the same yet somehow dissimilar to the city as this one, it was at one and the same time like coming home, but there were subtle differences and just as she knew that was and was not the same person as everyone gathered here knew and loved.

“Forgive me; this is a terrible way to begin. You must understand that this is difficult for me. My dimension is much like yours just as the city is much like yours. However, at the end we were forced to make a very difficult decision: either abandon the city or let it be over-run by dark matter creatures.”

“Creatures?” asked Colonel Sheppard with a good deal of healthy skepticism, but hoping he also conveyed that it was not addressed at her rather than at the idea itself.

“Yes, John, that’s what I said. At first we didn’t think too much of it, they were never very numerous and seemed harmless. Tentative forays in groups of five to six at time.” 

“An alien species native to your dimension?” asked Teyla.

“Yes,” replied Dr. Weir.” Our Dr. Carson along with Rodney and Radek made extensive studies of several of those we managed to capture and conclusively proved that were native to our dimension.”

“Did we all have counterparts in your dimension,” inquired Rodney.

“Dr. McKay, that is hardly to the point,” Carter replied.

“I realize that Major Carter but I was merely inquiring out of a point of academic interest, wouldn’t you agree Radek?”

Radek, who until now had been the quietest person in the conference room blinked and looked up at his fellow scientist, and replied, “Yes, Yes, a fascinating idea, it goes along with the Listerian principle that time is not linear, it is in fact a river constantly flowing and if one were to throw a rock into said river it would cause ripples, disturb the course of the river momentarily, but ultimately the course of the time river would continue.”

“What my esteemed colleague fails to mention that once one enters into another dimension one therefore becomes subject to the laws of said dimension,” added Rodney archly. He never really meant to sound supercilious and arrogant when it came in order to sound and appear greater or smarter than he actually was. 

Early on, Rodney Mckay had been a bit of annoyance; however, he had done so without realizing it. After five or more years as a member of the mission to the Pegasus galaxy, that aspect of his personality had been blunted by his friendship with his friends and teammates; the better angels of his nature. 

“Radek’s right. Falling through cracks between dimensions is a risky business, even if one were to calculate it precisely to open when and where we intended to wind up.”

“Then that planet where we found you,” asked Keller, “was deliberate?”

“Yes,” Elizabeth replied. “But it was not the first time. We had sent teams in to prepare for the coming of the entire population of the city.”

“We saw evidence of that,” Ronon remarked. “It looked as if they had abandoned the base.”  
Elizabeth nodded and then stated: “When it became clear all of us that we couldn’t go back and we couldn’t sustain the base on that planetoid anymore, that’s when we stumbled on that cryogenic technology. “ 

“It didn’t work?” Carter asked. “You were the only one left alive?”

“When we realized that the generators weren’t going to last and we could no longer sustain it, we came up with the cryogenic chambers in the hopes that in time someone would respond to our SOS,” she sighed, and went silent for a while as if thinking matters through. At last Elizabeth replied. “The power must not have been enough. Did you find anyone else, alive or dead at the base?”

“No, I am sorry, Elizabeth. We found no one else there, except you,” Sheppard said quietly.

She sighed and then replied, “Then they must have gone back, or somewhere else. I honestly don’t know what happened to the others.”

“But back to these dark matter creatures?” Sheppard asked.

Elizabeth Weir said: “I can’t say exactly when or how it came to pass, because my recollections of events are admittedly foggy at the moment, but sooner or later their tentative forays against the city’s energy force-field came with increasing frequency and aggressiveness.”

“And,” Sheppard prompted, wanting to hear more about these creatures, from what little he had learned they were an aggressive dangerous species, but at the same time, he wondered what had prompted it. 

“When did these attacks on the city’s energy shield begin, exactly?” he asked.

“Not all at once,” Elizabeth replied. “At first, it was merely sporadic, and the survey teams we sent out returned with differing reports of their numbers, abilities and locations. 

“Do you believe that they were naturally aggressive, or became increasingly so, the longer this went on?” asked Teyla.

“I honestly don’t know,” muttered Elizabeth. “But once things had reached a certain pass, their attacks were no longer tentative.”

“It’s possible that they were merely defending what they felt to be their territory, and saw the people of Atlantis as hostile interlopers,” remarked Ronon.

“It’s within the realm of possibility,” seconded Major Carter.

“Your counterpart, John, led teams to investigate what was causing this change. Several other teams we had sent out the dark matter creature’s territory never returned.”

“I am sorry for all your losses,” Teyla said, feeling her eyes well up with telltale and treacherous moisture. Although she had never known or worked with these people’s counterparts, a part of her still felt grief at their loss and their sacrifice. She had known what it was to be a leader, when she had been responsible for the lives and well-being of her fellow Athosians, so she could almost viscerally feel an evocative response within her for everything that they had been through.

Elizabeth turned to look at her and with something like bittersweet reminiscing in her eyes, she said, “Thank you, Teyla.”

“To make a long story short, there came a time when the force field gave out

“How is that possible that force-field was created by the Ancients, it survived thousands of years until we came along and made this place a viable once more,” Rodney exclaimed.

“Rodney, the creatures feed off energy,” Elizabeth said simply.

“Oh,” Teyla whispered.

Elizabeth soberly nodded. “Exactly. They broke into the city, and we rallied and fought them off. It was a long and drawn out fight.”

“Did you win? “asked Major Carter. She did not think the question sounded callous or insensitive with the way it came out, but it had to be asked.

“In a sense, eventually it was a heart-wrenching choice, keep on fighting until the end or abandon the city so that we have a fighting chance to live,” replied Weir.

“I understand,” said Ronon.

“They were creatures of light and shadow, man-sized but spindly were a man would be more massive in the chest and shoulders, and they were voracious, insatiable. We managed to continue them, but not without heavy casualties.” 

Elizabeth still could not have said precisely why, but as grateful as she was to be alive, were more alive than she had ever felt stuck in that cryogenic capsule, she also felt a curious sense of ambivalence. She shrugged even as she concisely and tersely explained the nature of the dark matter aliens that had been native to a nebula in the neighborhood of their or rather her Atlantis in the alternate reality Pegasus Galaxy. 

She figured that it would have to be expected that a lot of time and work would be needed before she got over that sense of displacement that would follow her unexpected reappearance in this universe. At the moment, she could not afford to dwell on it, because more important matters took precedence.

“And now you’re here,” Sheppard remarked.

“Now I’m here,” Elizabeth echoed with a sigh. “What now?”

“I don’t know,” Carter replied confidently, “but we’ll figure it out together.” She had never met or worked with the original Weir prior to transferring over from the SG-1 team to the Atlantis, but she had heard many good things about her from both Rodney McKay and Colonel John Sheppard, as well as many of the other men and women who had known her, and it had not mattered whether or not they had been military or civilian; somehow she had found a way to balance both sides of the equation and make it work. 

That was an admirable quality, and while she had been a bit ambivalent about stepping into the original roles in the city. Carter had never seen herself as a replacement for Weir more as a continuation of the position that Weir had so ably played. 

Now that the original Weir was dead and they were faced with a confirmed alternate reality version, Carter was not certain how she felt about it. It was not as if she harbored any doubts. Sammatha Carter had never presumed that the woman was out to resume her original role, nor did she expect to, but it was still a bit dicey all the same. 

Either way it was a fact, and it would just have to be dealt with. She could live with that.

 

****  
Encounter

“Nervous, Major?” asked Cavanaugh.

Lorne shrugged. “I guess I’m just used to the normal panoramic display of space, entering a void makes me a little jumpy,” Lorne replied, wiping sweat from his brow, but a few more formed even in the controlled  
climate of the “Daedalus.”

“We have visual readings,” one of the technicians announced.

“Display on the main viewer,” cut on Dr. Elizabeth Weir ordered the on-board computer; while she was aware of the exchange between the two main she chose not to make any comment upon it. 

The tension that had let up to this mission to take the Daedalus out to the dark matter creatures as they had been dubbed over the course of the past two years was palpable, and hardly relieved by the fact their sporadic and rather predatory forays in neighboring space had suddenly and abruptly come to a halt.

The studies and scans that they had managed to conduct thus far had been either not enough or inconclusive. In his typical and laconic manner, Sheppard had said that this boded ill for their chances, but it was quiet, too quiet. 

She agreed and she did not need to have read Dr. Carson Beckett’s report of Major Lorne’s last encounter with the dark matter creature that had managed to get aboard his research vessel and which had attacked him. It had not been pleasant, but it had been brief and bloodless, which she thought, they should be grateful for small favors. 

All the same, when Teyla had gone to fetch Major Lorne in his quarters when he had failed to show up in his usual timely manner when the all hands on deck alarm had sounded she had found him in his quarters, curled in a fetal ball his knees drawn up to his chain, shaking as if with a palsy murmuring over and over getting out.

Teyla had managed to get through to Evan somehow and to the limited medical facilities aboard the ship. At the time Doctor Carson had diagnosed it as nothing more than a mild epileptic seizure, but what if it was caused by his encounter with one of the dark matter creatures?

She could not afford to take that chance.

Superimposed on the screen was an inky cloud the spatial phenomena that they’d come to investigate. The image showed confined areas of gravity spread throughout a spiral galaxy. Pinpricks of light indicated the presence of stars which were suddenly blotted out by inky blanket of galactic dust.

‘It’s sort of beautiful,’ thought Weir, not realizing that she had uttered the thought aloud.

“Deadly beautiful, Ronon reluctantly agreed.

“The dark matter is practically impossible to track with our sensors without a source of stabilized electrical charges to lock onto,” said Rodney McKay, snapping Elizabeth out of her meandering thoughts.

She blinked and replied, “Dark matter influences the general area gravitationally, but is not seen directly. It’s associated with a missing mass problem.”

McKay nodded. “The patterns are indicative of standard galaxy formation, typically spirals. However, these voids are rather disconcerting. These are dark, but not empty regions of space.”

“Show up wherever the hell they please,” muttered Lorne, irritated with the detached scientific discussion, pretending as if something hungry and predatory was not out there waiting for them to come to it.

He was not far wrong; for at that very moment they all witnessed a split in the fabric of space was as sudden as it was startling as an amorphous mass of the dark matter creatures emerged from the tear and descended upon the ship.

The Daedalus had been built to withstand just about anything that it might encounter, and its weapons systems were formidable, which they now began to fire back. The dark matter creatures did not have any weapons as such, for they came at the ship in the manner of a horde of locusts swarming and swarming, and devouring everything in their path.

McKay watched in a kind of fascinated revulsion as the energy weapons pierced through that swarm, dividing them up but not stopping them. Through the audio pick-ups he thought he could hear them howling in pain and anger, their mouths open holes into the void.

“How did these things manage to get through the city’s energy shield,” he asked.

“They swarmed it,” Elizabeth replied. “It’s as if they feed off of energy, and get drunk on it.”

“Good to know,” said Colonel Sheppard. “If that’s the case we might consider changing our tactics.

“What are you suggesting, Colonel,” demanded Cavanaugh.

“I’m suggesting that instead of energy-based weapons we use projectiles instead.” Normally John Sheppard rather got a kick out of needling the older rather more by-the-book unable to think outside the box solider, but not was not the time for it, and that being the case, offered the most sensible solution he could think of.

“Gee, why didn’t I think of that,” sniped the older man.

“Because you’re too much of an old-school hard-ass for that,” Sheppard muttered under his breath.

“John,” Elizabeth remonstrated quietly. “Now isn’t the time for that.”

“Fine, but he kinda asked for it.”Even though the commander of the Daedalus was not the type to easily admit when he was wrong, he did have to give grudging acknowledgement that Sheppard had been correct about changing tactics, and he had read the reports about the dark matter aliens’ ability to absorb energy, he just had believed it until he witnessed the devastating rapidity at which they did so.

Most of the ship’s on-board sensors and sophisticated targeting systems were able to keep up with their movements, but it was as if Murphy’s Law applied, which stated that whatever could wrong more than likely would go wrong. 

Sheppard couldn’t tell from where stood on the command deck if when the projectile weapons they had launched at the creatures hurt them or not, but he hoped that they did. He turned to Teyla, who had at one time had a kind of psychic link with their former adversaries, the Wraith, and had been a double-edged sword for her and her friends and teammates. 

Teyla had witnessed the spindly forms of the dark matter creatures emerge from the rent in space, watched them attempt to swarm the ship like a horde of locusts, watch them seemingly drink up the energy blasts used against them like some kind of inky black sponge. 

Once they changed tactics and begun to use projectile weapons, the odds had rapidly changed in the Daedalus’ favor. 

It might have just been her imagination; she believed that she could hear their high-pitched painful screeches grating on her ears, like fingernails scrapping across a blackboard. How or why that could be she didn’t know, but she could and it was painful. 

From what little that Teyla had learned about these creatures from Weir and from the survey team had learned, she did not think that she felt sorry for them, or revulsion for their instinctual need to find off any available source of energy that they came across, instead all she felt was pain. 

It felt like a white serried wave upon wave of pain emanating from their attackers in a white hot band.  
She sank into the cold metal of the wall for support and wished that she could disappear into it, then closed her eyes in the hopes that that would help to alleviate the pounding in her head, using the backs of her hands to rub at her temples. It was a marginal outlet and only lasted for a minute or two, before the pain came back, this time stronger than before.

Ronon took his attention off of the pulsating lights of hits and misses which held the interest of his fellow teammates long enough to realize that Teyla was in distress. He bent down and helped to her feet, letting her lean in to his body, as he scanned the bridge for an empty seat. Seeing now, he reversed course and took her out into the adjoin corridor. 

Once there, he helped to slide to a more comfortable position on the metal floor.

“What’s wrong?” he asked. 

“My head hurts and the lights on the screen were hurting my eyes,” replied Teyla in a low and husky voice.

“Is there anything I can do? I could page Doctor Keller.”

“No, no it’s not like that, but water, some water would be kind.”

As Ronon moved away to fetch some water for her, she instead reached up to grasp the hem of his shirt, clenching it in one fist. “One second thought, don’t go, the water can wait. “

“Then what can I do?” he asked, bending down until he was crouching beside her. The feel of her skin was clammy and cool, but her hair hung down in sweaty ringlets. “I think I know how we can defeat them,” she whispered.

“How?” and his voice was husky with suppressed tension and worry for her.

“The initial thought was to attack them with sound waves, but I quickly dismissed that idea because as Rodney or any of the other scientists would tell us, space is a vacuum.”

“It’s still a good idea, I think,” said Ronon. “We would to create some sort of delivery mechanism and key it to the right well,” he offered a wicked but reassuring smile,” then shrugged, saying, “kill frequency.”

“That’s what I’m saying.” Teyla nodde and shifted to a more comfortable position on the floor; for she was feeling better now, the headache had begun to subside. “You see, I think what we should do is to change our energy output, make it so they are not drawn to it.”

“Wean them away from what these dark matter creatures believe that they crave and can’t live without,” grinned Ronon, “I like it. But, if you are able to get up now, we should go inform Colonel Sheppard together. 

 

**  
Sheppard hated waiting, but was forced to as the Daedalus continued to pummel the dark matter creatures with series after series of projectile weapons, which to be fair, was having a much better result than previously only using energy-based weapons. At the same time, the combination of the creatures’ attacks and the expenditure of power, if this kept up could seriously have an adverse effect on the ship. He was not by nature a gambling man, but the way things were going he would not care to lay long odds on their chances.

It was at that moment when he’d spent the last several hours tugging at the hem of his uniform jacket with his teeth gritted, when he felt someone tugging at his sleeve, and when he turned around he saw that it was Teyla with Ronon Dex standing beside her with his arms folded over his barrel chest and wearing a wicked grin on his face. Irritably Sheppard griped, “What’s up?”

“Oh, trust me, Sheppard. “You’re going to like this,” replied Ronon.

“Oh?”

“John,” began Teyla. “I think that the best way to get the dark matter creatures off our backs is to change the frequency of our energy weapons, to effectively get them to learn to avoid the Daedalus by weaning them off what they believe they crave.”

“I get it, I think,” said Sheppard. “You’re saying that we should sour the milk.”

“What are you talking about?” griped Rodney irritably.

“A way we get out of this mess with our skins intact and the ship in one piece.”

“I would like that, “replied Rodney, “ the way things are going we’re going to be limping home on impulse drive alone.” He shuddered. “I wouldn’t like to consider what this is going cost us in terms of the ship’s Naquada drive.”

“That’s it, Rodney! John exclaimed, giving the shorter man a comradely and overly enthusiastic smack on his shoulders that nearly bowled him over. “That’s it, exactly!”

“So how do we go about doing that?” asked Teyla.

“I’d have to study the energy readings at the science console, compare them with Radek and the other technicians down in engineering, and then once we have a metrics to go by we can compare and contrast them with something that will be less palatable to our’ friends’ out there.”

“How long will that take?” Sheppard asked.

Rodney shrugged, “No more than forty five, thirty minutes. “ And with that he was off, moving to the consoles of the bridge technicians and elbowing them aside to study the readings, moving from one to the other like one over-sized bee colleting pollen. Once that was done he hurried off the bridge, out the corridor, saying as he left, “Once I have the data, I’ll ring up, to let you know we’re coming.”

“Roger that, Rodney, we’re counting on you.”

“Be back in a flash,” replied Rodney with a wry grin.  
**  
It had been forty five minutes later but Rodney with Radek and the other scientists finally came up with a formula that ‘soured ‘ the energy output of ship, and once it the engines were modified and the weapons similarly configured, the result in their counter-attack against the dark matter aliens was pronounced.

The swarm had continued their attack unabated, as if they had no sense of self-perseveration, but continued to rush the ship in wave after wave, as if they simply could not get enough of the stuff. At the beginning the attack had been frenzied but organized, however as it went on; still frenzied but more broken up into smaller and smaller groups. 

However, once the energy frequency was altered the attackers pulled back almost en masse, 

“It’s working!” cried Teyla.

“I should hope so,” snorted McKay. “Like I said earlier, I don’t want to limp home on impulse power.”

This time it was Teyla who thumped Rodney enthusiastically on the back. “Of course not.”

Cavanaugh cleared his throat, “I don’t know about you, but I agree it’s working, however I think that we should be able to push them back into the breach, give them a little boost to go back to wherever the hell they came from.”

Elizabeth, who, until now, had been very quiet throughout the battle, but finally spoke up. “I agree. As I mentioned earlier, we cannot afford to take risk that they will spread. We have to push them back.”

“All right then!” said Sheppard. “Let’s get this done.”

“At last, we agree on something,” muttered Cavanaugh under his breath.

Cutting off his projectile attack and once the Rodney and the other technicians had input the modified energy output frequencies into the ship’s computers and modified the ship’s energy force-field, he then ordered the ship to full impulse, all ahead forward, setting course for the gap in space from which the creatures had emerged. They were only pushing them back, at incremental paces at first, but gradually faster and faster. 

It was more than likely a good thing that the audio pickups could not let them hear the screeching and howling of the creatures massing outside of the ship, because it was horrible. Teyla only peripherally ‘heard them, and she was forced to rub her throbbing temples and wish that this would quickly come to an end.

Elizabeth turned to her with a mingled look of surprise and dawning compassion on her face, but even as she began to speak the Daedalus pushed the last of the swarm back into the breach in space.

“Pull back!” Sheppard yelled. “We don’t want to wind up in there with them!”

“Pull back, full reverse!”

The ship pulled away, the momentum and abrupt course heading knocking almost everyone off of their feet, but they quickly recovered. 

“How do we seal the breach?” asked Elizabeth. 

“Gravitational bombs? “suggested Rodney, “But do so once we’re safely away.”

“You heard the man, get us as far away from that breach as possible, and then launch our remaining deployment,” Cavanaugh ordered.

Suiting action to deed the ship pulled away and then launched the bombs, the force of the impact from the gravitation waves sealing shut the tear in normal space and preventing the dark matter creatures from escaping from their alternate universe.

“It’s finally over,” sighed Elizabeth, for the first time in a long time an invisible weight that she had not realized that she’d been carrying felt lifted from her shoulders. “Finally.”  
****

 

Aftermath/Conclusion

It had been five days or more, since the defeat of the dark matter aliens and everyone had been occupied with other tasks that needed to be done, and as much as she wanted to resume her former role as a member of the Atlantis base, it was becoming increasingly problematic to do so. 

The initial sensation of being out of place had begun to gradually wear off, as well as the suppressed tension of recent events. What had her on edge was the feeling that once the immediate threat had been dealt with, that the crew would not accept her as she was now. 

Elizabeth Weir could have gone to any one of her friends to have a heart-t0-heart talk with, Teyla, or Rodney, or Carson Beckket. She had only recently learned that Carson, had died, and it left a hollow place in her heart. 

At last she had come here, to John Sheppard’s quarters.

“Elizabeth,” he said, “What can I do for you?”

“Can we talk?” she asked.

“Of course, come in,” he invited.

She looked around, the appearance had not changed, and she took a seat on the edge of his bed, and he sat beside her.  
“I am different, are you different?”

He offered a sardonic chuckle, “I honestly don’t know how to answer that one, I would have a little yes, and a little no.”

“More yes than no, then?”

“I imagine so.”

“It’s been hard to adjust to this new reality, but Doctor Heightmeyer’s says I’m making progress."

John nodded. “That’s a relief. Why do I get the feeling that you didn’t come here to discuss your ah, integration process?”

“I guess I’m not that different from the original, you could always read me, it’s the one trait that I admired most about you, even when we didn’t agree, especially when we didn’t agree. I remember that we argued a lot.”

“I liked our arguments,” he replied.

“You were a pain in the neck, sometimes,” she replied.

“As much as I’d love to her how closely my alternate universe counterpart matched up with yours truly, “ he began and then trailed off before asking her the question he’d been balancing on a knife’s edge since she knocked on his door, “Why did you really come by tonight?”

“We were searching our hearts for so long, there are all kinds of battlefields, but I don’t have to tell you, do I?” Elizabeth asked quietly.

“It would help to you if you ever felt that I stood in your way, or was I the best thing that you ever had?” 

“Were we ever more to each than friends, colleagues, or were we more than that. Could we ever have had more than that? I honestly, don’t know, Elizabeth.” John shook his head, thinking there were never any promises, never any demands, but if were being honest with himself, he did love her, and seeing the woman he had admired and felt as if she were an extension of himself, did he love her? Did it make a difference if he had? Hell! Yes, it did.’

“Do you think that my being here is a painful reminder of everything that you’ve lost, or,” she had begun the question with the familiar energy and confidence of the old Weir, but at the end her face contorted with something like pain or doubt, or another emotion entirely; one unique to this alternate counterpart, one that John Sheppard could not quite place.

“Or,” he prompted, wondering where this thought was leading.

“Or some cosmic idea of giving us a second chance?” she finished.

“I, think maybe you might be right, but I’ve never been one to believe that one’s destiny is mapped out from the moment of his birth, or some by some cosmic plan.

“It sounds crazy to even be talking about it, but the old you that I knew and the you I’ve come to know in this one, always firmly believed that a man or a woman’s destiny was they made for themselves.”

John snorted, amused by the fact despite all of the insanity and all the things that they had been through, that some things remained constant. 

“I suppose I do at that. The weird thing is, a part of me wants you to the Elizabeth that we knew and lost, and a lot of the crew, officers and civilians alike would concur, but…” he began and trailed off, tilting his head to one said as he thought over what he wanted to say, and wondering if the thought once put into words would come out the way he intended.

“But,” and she was the one who prompted him this time, moving closer to where they sat on the edge of his bed in his quarters. Close enough to touch, to caress, to share a kiss on those pouty lips of his, but as close as they were physically, something indefinable separated the two of them still. 

“To have a sense of continuity, that some things never change, but that doesn’t work, not anymore.”

“I think I understand, I walk, talk, eat, breathe and dare I say, even smell like the original model, but I’m not her, and I don’t think I can be even if I tried.”  
John nodded.

He reached over and began to massage the knotted muscles of her shoulders and back, then stopped and adjusted his position on the bed, and began to kiss her, pulling her into his embrace. “I like second chances, and to hell with what might come next.”

“Suddenly, I think we deserve a little respite, a moment out of time. And we’ll deal with tomorrow when it comes.”  
**

Conclusion

Evan Lorne stood in front of his canvas which rested upon an easel, with the paintbrush idly tapping against the side of his cheek, regarding the swirls of matte black and gray, along with a silvery blue hidden beneath the more somber colors.  
It had taken some time for him to get into the right state of mind in order to Dr. Keller’s and through Dr. Heightmeyer’s suggestion of using his painting as a therapeutic means to work through the swirling emotions and physical strain that he’d been under in the past week or so. It might have been longer than a week, in the mad dash of confronting the dark matter alien, time did get away from one when one was not paying attention.

He had begun by staring at the canvas uncertain as how to begin, and then cursing himself and his doubts; he had dipped his brush into his color palette and made jagged vertical lines. Halfway through, he felt that it did not convey what he intended and had torn the canvas off, crumbled into it a little wad and thrown it out. 

Then he started once more, letting the brush express his intentions and his emotions out onto the canvas without thinking overly much about how they should look or what they were intended to convey; simply going by feel.

He liked this composition much better; the bright swirls of silver and blue were akin to the wormhole and the black and gray were his more turbulent, less easily identifiable emotions coming out of the darkness and into the light. 

It was not quite finished, but it was a good start.

Lorne took a step back and set down the brush onto built-in-shelf in the easel and regarded the images he had created. “Yes,” he breathed and wiped the sweat off of his brow with the sleeve of his gray t-shirt that he wore underneath his painting smock. “Much better, much more fluid.”

He took a look at the read-out on his watch and realized that he was running late for his meeting with Doctor Keller. 

“Oh, well,” he muttered to himself. “At least, I’ll have good news to report. And she’ll like to hear that she was right about my painting, what’s it called? Oh yeah, therapeutic. But if it had been up to me I would have recommended a nice hot soak in a Jacuzzi instead.”  
**


End file.
